Chapter 22 - Mountainful'a Kimahris (Kill Seymour, Vol 3)

"Heeey, wait a minute. That eskimo standing over there looks familiar."

"Don't, Tydus."

"Hey, you with the hat! What's your name?"

Yuna sighed.

The eskimo near the edge of the canyon at the back of the Calm Lands turned around and looked at Tydus questioningly.

"What's your name?" Tydus demanded, pointing the Brotherhood accusingly.

"Er, Svania."

"I knew it!"

"So what?" said Yuna, "You're gonna hire her now?"

"No. Oh no. They're gonna pull something like this on me, they can just forget it!" Tydus continued to wave his sword in Svania's face. Svania, knowing what pointy edges could do to a face, tried to back away, and fell over the cliff.

"Oops..." said Tydus.

The group rushed to the edge in time to see the great blitzball player Svania hit the bottom of the canyon with a cartoonish thump and cloud of dust amid various Crusaders playing Ultimate Frisbee.

"Is she okay?" Tydus called down.

"Don't worry!" called a Crusader, "Bill falls down this second crevice here all the time, and he's just as good as the day his code was written."

"Maybe all the falling causes brain damage that's causing him to fall more?" Rikku suggested.

"Well, it's not so much falling as it is us pushing him down to retrieve the Frisbee."

"You're such a jerk, Steve! I won't stand for this a second more!"

"Oh, there went the Frisbee again," said the first Crusader.

"Damnit, Steve, don't—"

Bill screamed in a rather bored way before hitting the bottom.

At this time Svania disappeared from below and reappeared above in the spot she had been standing in before the group had approached, which was where Wakka was currently taking up space. There was an inhuman scream, and when the smoke cleared the group saw that Wakka and Svania had been splinched, clothes, lunch, and all. Wakania moaned a bit.

"Ew," said the group. They all stepped away quickly.

"By the sound of it," Steve yelled upward, "someone was standing on poor Svania's spawn point. The only way to fix that would be to throw... Svakka over the edge again. Svania, an NPC outside of her bounds, will respawn while Wakka remains down here in a bloody mess."

"Oh dear," thought Swavankia as it was unceremoniously pushed off the cliff by way of the flat of Auron's sword. He was the only one who would get close enough.

"We'll come down and pick him up!" Tydus yelled at the Crusaders.

Once at the bottom the group discussed how they would carry Wakka until he gained consciousness. Tydus had the idea of taking off Wakka's overalls and putting Wakka in his own extra-large pocket dimension. Tydus gave the overalls to Lulu, who put them on instead of her dress. It was slightly less revealing.

"Lulu, you didn't have to—"

"I know, but you try going on an adventure dressed like I was. Now I can really kick ass."

"You use magic, though. Dressing in impossible ways is supposed to boost magic."

"But now I can pursue Auron's path on the sphere grid, and eventually become... THE GREATEST FIGHTER EVAR!!!"

"Fine," said Tydus, "Whatever. But if one more of you goes off the deep end I swear to God I will pull the plug on my PS2."

"You're one to talk, Mr. Chocobo," said Yuna.

"'Chocobo'? Heeey," said Crusader Steve. He was peering at Tydus suspiciously. "Do I know you?"

"Um, no, I don't think so." Tydus started backing away toward the back exit of the Calm Lands. "Er, guys, let's get moving. Fast."

Yuna and Rikku sniggered. Kimahri sighed. Wakka snored.

On their way through the pass that led to Mt. Gagazet the group came across a bridge blocked by a rusty robot that smelled like it had a gas leak. Tromell wobbled up to them, followed by more Guados.

"Right," said Tydus, still feeling impatient and a little worried about the Crusaders not too far away. "I am just fed up with Guados. Anything you're here for besides an unconditional surrender will be met with the most extreme violence you've ever seen. I watched a lot of TV as a kid, I know what I'm talking about."

"Our beloved Maester requests that you commit group suicide, or at least—"

"I don't offer people the chance much, so I don't have a lot of experience, but that didn't sound like an unconditional surrender to me. What about you guys?" He turned to his group.

"Nice tough-guy act, Tidus," said Auron.

"Shut up," came the obligatory reply.

"If we kill them, they'll just come back, you know," said Lulu.

Tydus sighed. He was totally shot down. "Good point. How about we ignore them. They might just go away..."

"Hey!" Tromell called feebly after them. "You can't do that! Why hasn't there been a battle transition yet?! Come back here, traitors, and receive your righteous punishment!"

As they walked underneath the path toward the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, Rikku tossed a grenade at the robot, which, in accordance with the Law of Grenades, exploded.

Inside the cavern were... more fiends! Whoa! At the end of a short maze they reached Yojimbo's sacred chamber. As an insult to all tradition, the party et all followed Yuna into it. Inside, a bizarre, slightly transparent hobo was sitting on the shrine-in-the-floor. He giggled in a harsh voice.

"What... is your name?" asked the hobo.

"Yuna."

"What... is your quest?"

"To, um, perform the Final Summoning, I guess."

"What... is your favorite color?"

"What is my... Does that really matter?"

In answer, strange forces attempted to catapult her a very long way, but she hit the ceiling in transit. The hobo giggled again. Tydus stepped up uncertainly, flipping through his guide.

"What... is your name?"

"Tydus."

"What... is your quest?"

"To kill my old man! And maybe learn a valuable lesson or solve a mystery or something."

"What... is the maximum number of waffles an African Elephant can eat during the summer on an empty stomach, without syrup!?"

"Five hundred and two!"

"Give me 250,000 gil."

"What? No!" Tydus whapped the hobo on the head with his sword. The hobo sat, stunned, while Tydus proceeded to steal Yojimbo. As he walked away the hobo disappeared in another fit of raspy giggles.

When they were out of the cavern Tydus asked Yuna, "Is it usually like that, or what?"

"Yes, but they're not always so senile. That was insane!"

"So what was holding you up with Valefor?"

"That fayth asked me a math question involving four trains and a chocobo. At the time I didn't know what a train was, so it took a while. I still don't really know about the trains, actually..."

And so the heroes finally reached Mt. Gagazet! At its snowy base the group was confronted by the entire population of the mountain, the Ronso. The leader, marked by his old age, position at the head of this procession, and the stylish sash that said "President", began talking. "You must be Yuna and her numerous guardians. We Ronso have heard that you are now traitors of Yevon. But foresooth!" The Ronso held up a hand quickly, as if in preparation to fend off and attack or possibly a whiney defense of their cause, but none was forthcoming, as Tydus pointedly smashed the skip button on his controller.

"I am so sick of listening to people talk. It took us over two pages just to get to the place this chapter is about, so we're behind. Zanarkand's bound to be more interesting than a bunch of wussy Ronso, anyway."

The President of the Ronso looked affronted, then offended, then miffed.

"Oh, did little pink man just insult Beeran and Yenke?" The two stereotypical muscle-men Ronso from the bar fight in Luca stepped forward, jeering.

Kimahri immediately took up an offensive position directly on top of Biran, the one with the obvious dye job. Yenke yanked (ha ha) Kimahri off the stunned Biran, crushing several butterflies in the process of running away. The remaining butterflies swarmed Yenke to reap revenge. While he struggled to get the 'flies from his eyes (ha ha again) Kimahri was free to treat Biran like the punching bag he resembled, which was cut short when Yenke started using his legs. Claws to the stomach propelled Kimahri like a football into several Ronso standing nearby. Of course, this resulted in a free-for-all among the Ronso, which thusly led to a Ronso pile in a matter of minutes.

Kimahri's small size enabled him to squirm out from near the bottom of the mess, once again clutching several of his own vital organs. The butterflies were nursing their own wounds: bent and broken wings, lost antennae; Mrs. Honeydew was now a widow.

The rest of the group had at first watched with interest, then horror, and with interest again as this violent scene played out. Now that their party member had return, though, they nonchalantly sidestepped the pile of blue fur and continued up the pass.

At the end of the pass they were suddenly confronted with the East Ronso Choir, singing a ridiculous and unpleasant version of the Hymn of the Fayth.

"This must be a final insult, to try to get back at us," Rikku whispered.

"No it's not," the choir director whispered back, offended, "This is to honor you for beating us and to wish you well on your quest."

"Wait, but I thought everyone who believe in Yevon hated us..."

"Well, you would think that if you hadn't been paying attention earlier," the choir director retorted.

"Either way, you should stop singing," said Tydus. "It hurts my ears, and I have a feeling you guys might--"

Just as suddenly as the choir had appeared, it disappeared, blocked from view by Sin's ginormous mouth.

"—get eaten! Holy crap, old man! I know it was bad singing, but they're just harmless little Ronso!"

Sin chomped thoughtfully for a bit. As he lumbered away toward the Calm Lands he tripped over the Ronso pile and squished the remaining Ronso into a big blue pancake.

Auron coughed awkwardly. "And so Kimahri sets out for revenge on Sin for killing his people. This might be--"

"Wrong and double-wrong, geezer!" Tydus crowed. "Kimahri was already after Sin for totally boring and overused reasons, so this is obviously not his story."

Kimahri whimpered.

At this time Wakka woke up and demanded his overalls back. Lulu grudgingly complied.

The group continued up the mountain, along paths that inexplicably wound about, improperly suspended in the air. They only slowed down so that Tydus could make a snowman near one of the shrines using parts from dead fiends for arms, the nose, and such. He craftily made a top hat from several pairs of bunny ears courtesy of Auron's dignity.

Near the end of the path, Rikku stopped then tripped Tydus as he was walking past. Everyone else ignored them for some reason and continued past. "Um, Tydus..."

"Sure!" Tydus began making out with Rikku. Such a playa.

"Oh. My. GOD! Cheating on Yuna after stealing her from me?! You're gonna die, son of Jeckt!" Enter: Seymour double-dead, once more looking totally crushed. His misadventures in love are to be pitied.

Tydus nonchalantly stepped out of Rikku's personal space to face the murdered Maester. "Seymour, there is no way Yuna ever would have gone with you. We already know she'd rather jump off a cliff than marry you. And don't call me 'son of my old man'."

Seymour blinked with rage, long lashes slashing down like many tiny scimitars. Evil, evil eye lashes. "Prepare to hear me spill the beans on my master plan, son of Jeckt!"

"Stop calling me that!"

"I'm going to make myself the Final Aeon, kill your father, become Sin, and kill everyone and everything in sight, because your father is doing a very poor job! Death spiral! Death spiral! What do you say to that, son of Jeckt?"

"I'm going to kill you again, because that's three times you've used that hideous phrase instead of my chosen name, Ti--, I mean Tydus!"

"I'm going to kill you, too, because I am being ignored!" said Rikku. "And my dad's in this too, you know!"

"And the rest of use are going to kill you, too," said Yuna, "because you're a git." After discovering she had dropped one of her favorite dolls, Lulu had insisted everyone backtrack with her to help find it and this had brought them all back to Tydus and Rikku. Yuna had seen Seymour, which meant there was now no alternative to smashing his face in again.

"Yuna! Hi, honey! Want to be my summoner?"

"I'm surprised you asked this time. It gives me a chance to say no way in hell, crazy-ass freak-Guado!"

"Awww. I know! I'll kill you! You'll love me then for sure!"

"What--?"

Behind Seymour, a large, elaborate thing of sorts that looked exactly like it couldn't fly, float, or glide, came flying into view. It glided in at eye level and remained floating in the air.

Tydus whipped around, pointing his sword and flipping his hair. "What the hell is that?! Where does he get these ridiculous toys all the time? Maybe he should trying killing Sin with it. You know, without the final summoning."

"Has anyone told Tydus about the Final Summoning yet?" Yuna asked. Everyone shook their head. "Then shut up, Tydus."

"Arrrgg!" Wakka moaned, sporting a new gaping hole. "It has sharp edges!"

Upon noticing the battle had started, the group went through the usual routine, only it went a bit slower because Seymour was using haxors to get extra turns in which to turn each of them into zombies. Then Tydus, ignoring his guide's warning about using aeons against Seymour, decided to try his first summoning. Lacking a rod, he tried performing a little improve-jig while waving a spare Grendel arm.

The perpetual day was overlapped by a night that was definitively purple. A full moon took up half the sky, and cherry blossom petals came down like frilly pink snow. Out of this blizzard stepped the bulky Yojimbo, followed closely by The Ugliest Dog Ever.

"Dude, your dog is ugly," said Tydus. Yojimbo faced Seymour and... did nothing. "What the crap? Kill the fool! You... want me to pay you, don't you..."

Yojimbo grunted confirmation.

"That is absolutely stupid. Aeons are slaves, to do the bidding of the summoners! No wages, no matter how amazingly good ya are, and you aren't even remotely amazing." Tydus sighed. "Why is it that my aeon is such a rip off?"

"You only got it because the fayth went crazy," Yuna muttered.

"Heeey, an awful lot of people here seem to be off their rocker, and all this insane stuff is happening. Maybe none of this is real, maybe I'm still dreaming..."

"Don't be stupid." Seymour was getting rather impatient waiting for Tydus to finish his turn. "You're not the one dreaming."

"Shut up!" said Auron, "don't spill the beans prematurely."

"I can't help it. When I have beans I need to spill them!" Seymour whined.

"You're dismissed, Yojimbo!" Tydus ended his turn, but not before placing a trap card face dow— no wait, that was way off.

Kimahri finished Seymour off with a devastating butterfly/spear combo attack. As Seymour laid there spurting pyreflies, Yuna persisted in not sending him. This entails another battle, of course. Presently, he laughed that pathetic laugh the bad guy laughs when he has lost everything but gets at least some joy knowing he's about to deal a major blow to a good guy before going. "Before I got here I killed all the Ronso! That's right, Kimahri, every last one!"

"No you didn't," said Tydus, annoyed. "Sin did. Stop stealing credit."

"Fine, then. Kimahri, Tydus's father killed your people. Betcha want to kill Tydus now, eh?"

"I don't think Kimahri cares. In fact, he's the biggest Ronso around now, so he's king of the mountain, president of the Ronso (singular), lord of the butterflies. Seems Kimahri has profited most from this entire ordeal. And would you stop treating me like an extension of my old man!"

"Wait a second..." said Auron, "Jeckt is Sin?!"

"As if you didn't already know! You told me!"

"I know, but I don't think the others were paying attention and it's about time you learn that lesson about keeping secrets from your friends."

Wakka said, "Does this mean we aren't going to kill Sin?"

"Of course not!" Tydus fumed, "Nobody knew my old man was Sin before now, thank you Seymour-" Seymour laughed again, "-and if he is, then this implies that the Sin before him was someone, too. It's always been someone, and the fact that it's my old man this time only gives me more reason to kill him!"

"Gosh," said Yuna, Rikku, and Wakka. Lulu's contract specifically stated that she didn't have to say "gosh".

Seymour shuddered. "Gak! Disappearing now. See you guys later!"

"I hate this place!" said Tydus.

The rest of the group had already started down the path again. And in the next area was...

"HOLY HELL!"

"That's an oxymoron, Tyd—HOLY HELL!"

"Whatever is there, I refuse to say—HOLY HELL! Damn, I did it anyway. But that's just... so... holy hell..."

I'll bet you're going bonkers wondering what's in the next area. And I'm down a couple hundred dollars! Past the first path up Mt. Gagazet is a wall of fayth! Everyone knows that, except for the people of Spira.

"People!" said Tydus, "This wall is made of people! Oh the wallmanity!"

"Shut up, Tydus," said Yuna as she examined the wall. One of the fayth was making a rude gesture with his free hand. She stepped back, nodding wisely. "Yep, these fayth are definitely up to something. You can tell by the way they're all glowing and covered in slime."

Lulu joined in the wise nodding. "Whatever they're doing, it's something big. Wonder what it could be... Hey look, Tydus fainted. I was wondering when he would give up." She moved in to perform Waterga on his head.

"No, wait!" said Auron, "It seems to be some sort of plot device."

Tydus woke up in a grayer Zanarkand, a Zanarkand with less playable space. Someone had chopped off the rest of the road leading from his house. In the distance was a gigantic worm thing, and above his head was a shiny UFO, a regular flying saucer. There was no one around, the only place to go was inside his house. "I'll whip me up some waffles, catch some sleep, and in the morning everything will be peachy. Someone will come fix the road, someone else will fix that big worm problem, the garbage man will still pick up the garbage tomorrow, because it's trash day, I think..."

But inside his boathouse there were no waffles, or even any trash. Just the kid in the purple cloak, sitting in a corner moving in and out of focus. "'Lo again, Tydus," she said. "Last I saw you was in Bevelle."

"Bevelle? I don't remember... Oh, wait, that plot hole... Dang, hope I didn't miss anything important." Tydus almost laughed saying the last part. He made a serious face and said, "You're not going to tell me not to cry again, are you? Because that would exceed my weirdness budget, which has been pushed to the limits lately. If you don't have anything normal to say to me, you better shut up and give me back the waffles you stole."

"Er... History lesson time! You know Zanarkand and Bevelle had a war and Bevelle's machina whupped Zanarkand's ass, it was so nearly destroyed that the people who survived turned to a new-age voodoo called summoning to stick themselves in a wall and lived out their fayth-y lives remembering Zanarkand prior to its destruction. This is the kind of stuff they teach in third grade, you know."

"So Zanarkand was attacked by... Bevelle? Bevelle's machina? I understand this? Where's Sin come in, then, if Bevelle destroyed everything for some reason? Just give me my waffles, you insane child!"

"You don't need waffles, you're a dream."

"I'm what? Dreaming?"

"No, you're a dream."

"You're a dream?"

"YOU! Right there! Are a dream! You're not real! This Zanarkand isn't real and hasn't been for a thousand years! The fayth are getting kinda bored now, you know, and if it weren't for Sin we coulda stopped at any time! Then your dad had to get out, somehow, and now we barely have the processing power to keep you in the physical flesh!"

"..."

"You have to figure out how to stop Sin for good so we can wake up!"

"And that would mean I would disappear?"

"Praise the gods, yes!"

"You want me to commit suicide? Just like that?"

"You were going to do it anyway!"

"So why'd you tell me? You’re as bad a Seymour."

"Gah! You dreams are so annoying! Just wake yourself up! You still have a live physical body to go to."

"I'm annoying?! Huh, well I—"

"—never. Oh, hello everybody."

"Make any startling revelations while you were gone, Tydus?" Auron winked at him.

"What? No, what are you talking about, Auron? You’re crazy." He turned to the rest of the group. "He's crazy." The rest of the group murmured in agreement. "So, let's make with all haste to most of our dooms!" There were fewer murmurs of agreement, but they all disappeared into Tydus's pants when he returned to that map and so got no say.

"Let's see if I still get this," Tydus mused to himself, "I was dreaming... or I was in someone else's dream, and the real me is long dead. This continent has always been called Spira and summoning existed at the time before I left, that is, the time being remembered..." No surprise, Tydus walked into a wall. He got a face full of butt for that.

Eventually he wandered into the Caverns of Darkness. "That's a great name, but why not call it Wolf's Head Caves instead? Much more likely to have horror stories, then," thought Tydus. The fiends were back, and looked like they had just come from the set of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. If he hadn't known better he would have thought they were all mini bosses, but they sure didn't fight like it.

After several puzzles whose prizes failed to include any Lvl 3 Key Spheres, the group reached the end and an actual boss with no interesting story behind it, so without much talk it was ground to dust. But it was very trying, and stuff...

Past the guardian of the sanctuary was...

"HOLY!—"

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Howdy all!  Thanks for your patronage and comments. ^^

Someone asked about side quests.  I never did all the side quests, and most of the ones I did I never finished.  I attempted Tydus's, Auron's, Kimahri's, Wakka's and even Lulu's Sigils, and achieved Yuna's, so some of that might be there, but no village of the Cactaurs!  Furthermore, there will be no FFX-2 because it doesn't seem to be too great a game, and I don't have the time or the money to buy it.  Sorry 'bout that.

Next chapter is Zanarkand, which might take another month to do -_- blame it on my Adv. Sen. Eng. teacher!